The History of Zootopia's Middle Age
by Dan Rush
Summary: A writing from the dean of Zootopia University, Doctor Emeritus Mandemus, on the history of Zootopia's Middle Age and the most powerful state of the time, Lupinian Rome (Rome of the Wolves)


A  
simplistic review of Zootopian History with Focus on the Lupinian Roman Empire as written by Doctor Emeritus Lulow Mandemus. Dean of the University of Zootopia.

Written by Dan 1966 as a prelude to "Lupis Gloria Romani" by Ademi and Dan 1966

**PREFACE**

The purpose of this simple small booklet is to give the citizen of our republic a basic understanding of the history of Zootopia through the three ages most commonly referred to as the "Pre-Common Age or "PCE", The Common Middle Age or "The Middle Age" and the Common Modern Age or "CMA" so all will understand and appreciate where we have been, where we are and where we wish to go into the future. This particular writing will focus on the dominant and critical influence of the Middle Age Lupinian Roman Empire from whom our modern Zootopia in many respects still carries its defining marks.

**1\. The ages of Zootopia**

The three ages so far in Zootopia are as follows….

1\. The Pre-Common age or as our young mammals would call it? The Dumb Ages.

2\. The Common Middle Age

3\. The Common Modern Age.

**Note: Explanation of the historical clock.**

It is generally accepted that our world is 10,000 years old, that is known time as archaeology and geology understand it. We count these 10,000 years in the three ages of Zootopia as follows…..

The Pre-common age started roughly 2,000 years after the known creation time of our world (8,000 years before our time today) and lasted 2,000 years.

The Common age or "The Common Middle Age" began roughly 6,000 years before our modern age and lasted roughly 4,000 years.

Our current age called "The Common Modern Age" began 2,000 years ago and continues into our present day.

**2.** **The Pre-Common age or the "Dumb Ages"**

Our young mammals enjoy making merry fun of the Pre-common age of Mammalia by calling it "The Dumb Age". It was during this time that our ancestors went about on their paws and hooves on all fours. Species could not communicate with each other and within species our forefathers and mothers could only bark, howl, whinny, meow, roar and perform the most primitive forms of basic communication.

It was a terrible time to be a pray mammal in this savage and prehistoric period. Predators hunted prey for their basic nutritional needs. Procreation and perpetuation of species was emotionless, brutish and without affection or love. Prey mammals lived in deathly fear of every predator and every predator lived equally in fear of larger predators.

We know by archaeology that there was a class of apex predators in our world who reigned supreme as the dominant super-predators and no mammal, predator nor prey, were safe from their ravages. We have chosen to name this super predatorial class..."Dinosaurs"...yet for reasons we have yet to discover, these super predators did not survive long into the Pre-Common age and less than 100 years into the Pre-common age...the Dinosaurs were all extinct. There is strong evidence that a virulent plague ravaged our known world at that time and this perhaps ended the Super Predators. There is someone or some thing we all should be thankful for...that they are not here now. Tyrannosaurus Rex would definitely make a bad dorm mate or a terrible pet.

**3\. The Common Era or "The Middle Common Age"**

No one actually knows how nor the precise date of the event which brought radical change to our world happened. There are the usual theories and stories out of religion, conspiracy web sites, late night radio talk shows and the theories which have made their ways through our academia but there came a day when our ancestors walked upright on their hind legs and hooves, suddenly had the ability to speak a common language, express emotions and display advanced intellect.

We grew a sense of shame and fashioned clothes to honor our modesty. Prey animals displayed concern for their lives and predators began to respond and feel a level of disheartening at taking the lives of small creatures for food. Species began to make their own settlements, the first crude forms of housing and farming began to evolve as well as senses of communal and family life. Though not all of our forefathers and mothers embraced this changing environment at once, many were more swift than others. The wolves especially were rapid adapters and by the middle of the Common age, They developed one of the most influential and powerful societies which would have a profound and lasting impact long after it fell by the beginning of the modern age. I speak of course of Lupinian Rome which I will expound on later in this writing.

Lupinian Rome lasted 900 years. It has been 3000 years since the fall of the Western Lupinian Empire. The last 1000 years of the Common Middle Age saw Zootopia fall into a horrific and bloody conflict called "The great unification war" or as we better know it "The hundred year Predatorial Civil War"

100 years before the Modern Era. Many predators believed that Zootopia, all of the land which now encompasses our modern home, was the only inhabited land in our world. We were centuries away from building ships to sail our seas and find out that we were not the only mammals in the world. Predators feared that with the continued slaughtering, consumption and enslavement of pray mammals; predators themselves would turn to devour each other and our world would then cease to exist as all life had taken itself out of existence.

Many of our predator fathers stepped forwards to call for the end of the cruelties inflicted on the lesser and weaker mammals while other Predators refused, called these brave leaders traitors and threatened them with death. The civil war that followed was horrendous as prey mammals rushed to the side of the heroic predators who loved them, they fought with them and died with them in a great blood letting. Thousands of prey and predator alike littered the battlefields as arrows gave way to gun powder, gun powder gave way to muskets, muskets gave way to cannon and cannon gave way to rifles.

Every year on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, all of Zootopia stops all work and quiets all tongues to remember the end of the great slaughtering and the great loss of life which gave us our modern world. It is why our society abhors war and values every sentient mammalian life as sacred and worthy of love be they predator or prey. With the end of the great war, the time clock of our civilization began to count upwards from the number zero and in the year 1776 on what is now Grand Mammalian Memorial Park in the center of Downtown Zootopia, our National constitution came into existence declaring that all Mammals are equal, that they deserve the rights of freedom, respect, life, liberty and happiness without fear. That to that end we the citizens of the republic are tied by our blood, our oath and sacred honor to preserve these assurances by our strength and if need be….our death.

That is just a basic outline of our history to this day. Next, we shall begin to look at Lupinian Rome and its' impact and continued impact on our modern society.

**LUPINIAN ROME and the Common Middle Ages**

Our society today in Zootopia owes many things to the ancient wolfen society known as "Lupinian Romana" or "Wolfen Rome". Today, every wolf in Zootopia can trace their linage back to this powerful nation state which at the height of his power dominated all of the land we call Zootopia today. Wolves take pride in believing that our modern Fleet Marine Force is decedent of the great "Populare Legonus Roma" or "Army of the citizens of Rome" the powerful legions which transformed a small confederation of cast off rabble and dreg wolves into the colossal juggernaut of our Middle Age. Zootopia contains much of good advances developed by the Roman state. Finance, Government, commerce, construction, law being among the few lessons taken. But as with empires, there is great good shrouded by much great evil. Among that evil being an institution of brutal slavery and cruelty...no greater example of that cruelty than in the arena where predator and pray alike were sacrificed and torn apart for the amusement of the Roman state. Many prey species were on the verge of extinction by the time Rome fell from its' own success.

**The birth of the Roman State: A coffee cup of fact and fiction**

The exact historical details of the birth of the Roman Empire are lost to us. Much of this depravity of information is due to the many fires both physical and political that swept Rome during her history. The great library of Thesius Marnah, the glory of Roman education and knowledge, was itself destroyed during the third Roman Civil War and thus with it all traces of information concerning the founding of the settlement on the River Tyber and the exact dates.

What we have about the founding comes from oral history passed from Wolf to cubs and as with such history, distortion and myth mixes with the physical and produces an entertaining and bizarre soup. If you dislike the lentil beans in this soup, you are left to pick them out and digest the remaining hearth. Yet according to the oral traditions of the wolves, this is the story of the founding of Rome….

Long ago there was a female wolf named Drusella and among young female wolves, there was none that could match her in beauty or love. Her coat was said to be the shiniest, softest and most fair fur in all the land and every male wolf was smitten to vicious and bitter fights over the right to have her as his mate.

Drusella was the daughter of Heckula, the leader of the powerful Italoni wolf pack who dominated the Tyber Plain. One day, Heckula proposed an alliance with another equally powerful wolf pack, the Sayoni of the Kuskeni (Kusk-Ken-eye) valley and offered Drusella to be the mate of the Sayoni wolf pack leader's son, Prince Aluka. Drusella was commanded to remain a virgin for one year and prepare herself to be wedded to the strong and handsome Aluka.

But before the year was over...Drusella was raped by a beast in the forest. The description of this frightening creature over the centuries of wolf tails has bore the descriptive name of "Werewolf". A sort of hybrid creature best fitting our rated B movies because such a creature could never exist. The beast impregnated Drusella and she was forced to hide the shame of her despoiling until she berthed the filthy results of her spoiling. She bore two strange wolf cubs, calling them Romulus and Remus.

So sickened to have born such abominations to her wolf ancestors, Drusella chose to throw the cubs into the reeds along the banks of the Tyber river and left them to die. Her wailing at this painful choice was said to have shaken the great mountains to their foundations.

It was after Drusella left that another she wolf named Kala came upon the twin cubs and seeing that their mother had not returned, offered them her own teets to suckle and her body to keep them warm. When they had been restored their strength, Kala took the strange wolf cubs back to her own cave and to her mate Atriades (At-tree-ah-dees) and knowing his mate to be barren and incapable of having cubs, took Romulus and Remus into his care as his own sons.

Today, a cave in the highlands of Tundra Town is still considered the sacred home of Romulus and Remus and many wolves make annual pilgrimages to offer flowers and gifts to the pair of adult wolves they consider to be the "sacred parents of wolf culture."

The twin cubs were indeed strange and different to their adoptive parents. They walked on their hind legs, spoke in a tongue that was strange and yet they could clearly understand their parents and moved and adapted quickly to landscapes wolves would have found impossible to engage. They were also capable of going from their two legged forms with powerful arms and long fingered paws to feral four legged wolves with normal canine paws with amazing speed. They also found that they could wield hand weapons with great ease and dexterity.

The differences between them were obvious. Romulus was hot headed, brutish, aggressive, physically powerful and intimidating while his brother Remus was stronger in his thinking, cautious in his movements and slow to be rash and impetuous. He was also said to be as fair and as beautiful in appearance as his mother.

Atriades taught his sons simple virtues which became the basic foundations that led to Roman Law and Roman societal cohesion. As they became teenagers and knowing well that their parents were not their original parents. Romulus and Remus begged the leave of their surrogates so they could seek out their real mother to show her they were alive and to tell her all was forgiven by them for being abandoned so long ago.

After much inquiry however, the brothers learned the horrible truth of their mother's fate at the hands of the powerful packs, the Italoni and the Sayoni. Accused of being a wretched whore, Drusilla was chased down, torn to shreds and tossed upon an elephant dung heap as waste. The quick to enrage Romulus called upon the Wolfen moon god for vengeance and howled all through the night in mourning until he and his brother awoke to find two swords presented at their paws. Romulus took up his sword and called it "Tam" while his brother took up his sword and called it "Fahr"

Waiting for the right moment as the two wolf packs sat in counsel, Romulus fell upon the Italoni while his brother fell upon the Sayoni. The wolves were no match for the swift, fast morphing powers of the two brothers and the pack's entire patriarchy including their cub bearing females were slaughtered with zeal and revenge. The brothers wearing the skins of the pack fathers for their brutal murder of Drusilla. The remaining wolves were only allowed to live when a youngster begged for their lives. After that day the Sayoni and Italoni packs ceased to exist.

Romulus and Remus then led the survivors back to the cave of their adopted parents where after swearing oaths of allegiance to the brothers...father Atriades taught these young wolves the essence of virtue and law while the brothers taught them their skills of form switching and combat fighting. The young wolves realized that the brutal killing of Drusilla was an illegal act upon an innocent and devoted themselves to serving the brothers in anything they wished.

Both brothers decided that they wanted to create a city state to unify all wolves under a single banner, a single voice and a single mind of thought. The brothers led their new pack down into the Tiber River valley to the place where their much loved adopted mother found them and thrust their swords into the mud and soil of the Tyber River bank…

"Let it be here." Romulus said. "And let it shake the earth with its' howl."

That is the mythical founding of Rome.

**The rape of the Ituskins. (Eye-Tusk-Skins)**

Under Romulus and Remus, the small settlement grew swiftly as the brothers welcomed cast off wolves, vagabond wolves and wolves of ill repute into their gates. They also welcome escape predators who had been slaves of larger mammals like foxes and weasels. Soon however, the brothers realized a terrifying fact...the population of their settlement was majority male with very few female wolves. It would not possibly survive past a generation. Yet no other large wolf pack around them would allow its' daughters to mate with such ruffians and briggens. In hasty counsel, the brothers and several of their most trusted confidants came upon a solution. If they could not get brides….they would steal them. So it was that Romulus and Remus crafted a plan to take females from one of the largest and most dangerous packs in anchient Zootopia, The Ituskins.

Under the cover of a festival dedicated to the wolf moon god in which the centerpiece was a large and beautifully prepared and cooked chestnut bull, the Ituskins were encouraged to bring their mates and pups, especially the females to the feast. Lulled by the elegance and beautiful poetry spoken by Remus who's very charm lay in his own deceptively innocent and sublimely fair beauty as any wolf male could ever be….the paternal line of the Ituskins ate and drank themselves into stupor. Remus slipped from the banquet room, bolted the only escape shut and his brother and several conspirators set themselves upon the Ituskins…..and slaughtered them. They then set upon the female wolves, many of them just coming into pup bearing age and raped them in a night of ravaging lust and orgy.

When the surviving Ituskins found out what had happened, they prepared for war with the aim of annihilating the fledgling Romans. Sadly their planned slaughter would include their own sisters and mothers because of the shame of their despoiling at the hands of vermin.

The Ituskins took six months to prepare for war but during that time, Remus worked his spell binding skills of voice and oratory upon the Ituskin females as he had done on their fathers. Telling them of how devastated and low the Roman males felt about their crimes and how they brutalized the innocent female wolves. He told them with sweetness and kindness that the males would spend the rest of their days ensuring the females needed nothing nor would have worry for lack of anything. That the males would serve their every whim and fill their every desire. He even promised them glorious emancipation and the right to share every bit in decisions and powers of state and household if they would forgive the males for their criminal acts and accept them as their slaves and mates. His delivery of oratory worked.

As the Ituskins closed on the Roman settlement bent on murder, they were met on the trail outside the gates by a solitary young female Ituskin wolf named Caria. In a passionate plea, Caria begged her kinfolk not to slaughter the Romans for the sake of their sisters and mothers.

"_Please….do not make us widows and our cubs to die in the cold we beg you. Our mates have done great evil and will spend their lives atoning for it, yet we who are your dear ones will enjoy lives of comfort guarded by strong mates who adore us and are ready to give us the world. Please...if you refuse, you will watch us all throw ourselves into the Tyber river and it will be your names we will curse and haunt for all eternity. Should not all of us be one family? Should not all wolves prosper? Should not the world be ours? Allow us to raise our cubs with this noble ideal. Come and join us and we shall know greater glories on the tips of our paws than our pack would ever know alone."_

Caria's words stirred the hearts of her brothers. The first to march up to the gate of the city with his paw extended was Mamericus Ituskin. He embraced Romulus with the words "Brother….all is forgiven. Now let us take the world and make it under this banner…."One pack, one paw, one tooth, one world….all ours." It was truly the moment the Lupinian Roman Empire was whelped onto the world as our ancestors knew it.

**Next: A brother's murder and the line of kings. The road to a Republic.**

What happened between the two brothers who were the founders of Rome has been a debate for centuries. Some say the story is an allegorical myth created towards the tail end of the empire to explain how Rome's down turn could be blamed on sibling rivalry..."We didn't cause this, those two morons did!" It is true that Romulus and Remus's stars had turned sour by the time the empire split in two. Fact or fiction however, the story of the end between the two brothers confirms the old line that…."There can be only one."

As the Roman settlement began to grow larger and faster, both Romulus and Remus declared there should be a king-ship to govern over the population. Naturally the brothers each claimed they should be the first king…

Romulus declared that because he was the strongest, the most aggressive and the most able to command armies and defend the settlement; naturally he should be king.

Remus declared that kingship resided much in being good with mind and words as with physical prowess. Thus he should be king.

The brothers decided to settle issue with a simple cub's game. They agreed that a bag of river rocks from the Tyber should be gathered up and each would draw a stone from it. The one who drew a red river stone would be king of Rome. And so it was that a bag of rocks was gathered and the brothers retired to a distant hill with a neutral witness, a fox named Genifax, to oversee that the game was played fairly.

Now wolf lore says that this mound or mount is currently the highest point in Tundra Town. This of course can not be proven. But the brothers ascended the mound with their witness and together reached their paws into the bag….

Both of them drew out red colored river stones….

At first the brothers chuckled at the good fortune in jest. They dropped the rocks back into the bag, the bag was shaken and once again they dipped their paws into the bag...

Both of them drew out red colored river stones….

This was strange? The brothers ordered the bag dumped out. They and Genifax examined each stone, found nothing unusual, replaced the stones in the bag, shook the bag up, reached their paws once more into the bag….

And both of them drew out red colored river stones….

Romulus, being the quick tempered hot head he was, suddenly accused his brother of praying to the fox god to help him steal the throne.

Remus like wise accused his brother of conspiring with the weasel god to steal the throne.

Romulus slapped Remus in the snoot.

Remus punched Romulus in the maw.

Then an all out brawl ensued between the brothers and poor Genifax was knocked out trying to stop the fighting.

At some point...Romulus drew a dagger and stabbed his brother in the chest, killing him instantly.

Needing to hide his terrible deed...Romulus quickly slit the throat of poor Genifax and cut off his beautiful fox tail. Coming into the settlement covered in blood and holding up the severed fox tail; Romulus declared that his brother had been possessed by a demon placed inside him by the treachery of Genifax and Romulus was forced to slay his only brother. In retribution, the twenty fox families who lived in the settlement were brutally murdered and their tails tied to the first standards of the founding Legionaries (The Legions). For the rest of the days of empire, foxes would be hunted down and butchered for their tails because of this deception. Sadly in our time there remains a deep enmity between foxes and wolves over what may just be a fable to cover the criminal act of sibling-cyde.

But Romulus's ruse worked, making him the first king of what became Lupinian Rome, named by Romulus himself.

**The Six Kings and their stamps on Lupinian Rome.**

30 years into the 900 year existence of Rome...the growing city state was governed by six kings; Romulus being the first. He took Caria, the female wolf who's appeal to her own kin of the Ituskins gave the young city state it's most rapid population expansion as his mate and queen. From them would come Mulis Tracitus Romulia, Rome's third king.

Each of the six kings would put their own stamps of influence into the Roman state that would shape and develop its' character, its' rise and its' eventual fall in the years to come. The six kings reigned a total of 97 years.

**Romulus**

Romulus's important contribution was the creation and foundation of the legionares military system and with it the first moves towards empire as Romulus led the fledgling legions in expanding the frontiers beyond Rome's walls in what was described as pure defensive warfare. Romulus also established the requirements of citizenship even though he continued to attract a diverse mix of predator species like Tigers, Lions, Coyotes and Nubian wolves who became an elite commando force later in the early Republic.

**Vibius Electus**

One of Romulus's first legionare commanders and so endeared to the King that he adoringly called him "Father". Vibius became "King pro temp" when Romulus became ill from mange and died in Vibius's arms. Vibius solemnly promised to educate Romulus's son Mulis to prepare him for the kingship and when the young wolf reached adulthood...Vibius stepped aside.

Two important marks of Vibius's reign was the creation of the People's Assembly" or the Senate and the institutions of representative Democracy and voting. The Senate's size fluctuated with another of Vibius's inovations, the every two year Census...the counting of the population.

**Mulis Tracitus Romulia**

The son of Romulus, Mulis instituted the laws which governed who and who could not be a citizen of Rome and what procedures and steps would be required for citizenry. Wolves were automatically citizens of Rome be they natural born or not. Predators were welcome and were given some basic rights but had to meet requirements to petition for citizenship and upon granting of such, attained the full rights to be called a Roman citizen.

Pray mammals on the other hand along with the wrongly despised foxes, could never become citizens. Pray animals were considered food stuffs, enemies of the state or slaves to be dealt with as seen fit. Even if a pray animal did anything noble in support of or in defense of the Roman state...their lot in life was the same. They were worked to death, beaten to death or put to death and then eaten. Every Roman from birth would be taught that pray animals were worth about a tenth of a tenth of a pile of dung...unless they were nicely prepared to be on a dinner plate.

**Primus Romulus Ligur**

After the death of Mulis, his son Primus became king. Primus's memorable marker was sending emissaries throughout the known world to attract skilled crafts-mammals, laborers, scholars and ecomnomadi (economic specialists) to not only change the physical condition of the Roman city state but make it economically viable. Wood and thatch over time gave way to brick, masonry and mortar. An economic system of currency was created and trade and import established. It was also here that the most cruel part of Rome's trading and inports was created...that of the pray slave and food trade which by the end of the Roman period would see millions of pray mammals slaughtered almost to extinction across the empire.

**Kaeso (Ky-Ay-Sow)**

Kaeso was the second King not of royal blood and sadly he would become the first and certainly not the last Roman leader to die by murder. His contribution to the city state was the reformation and codification of law into a more solid and coherent form binding rich citizen down to the poorest, except for pray who were vermin and deserved no protection. Kaeso would also continue the "defensive" wars of expansion giving Rome a nearly 100 mile defensive zone beyond the city walls. What Kaeso did not know was that his sister Vesnia was plotting to put her own son Quintus on the throne and by year 94 of the reign of the Kings...she did so by brutal murder.

**Quintus Trebatus Cholrus**

"Quintus the ripper"

Quintus Trebatus Cholrus was a tyrant who stole from the national treasury, killed his opponents, placed his family in positions where he could control power and abused his authority. What brought him to his end was a violent crime committed by his eldest son Oppius upon a well loved and respected female wolf named Papinia who was considered a model of female lupine industriousness and virtue. One night...Oppius followed Papinia to her home where he beat her, raped her and told her that if she dared to speak of the deed….he would kill her.

The next morning...the battered Papinia climbed atop the hall of justice near the royal palace and cried out what had been done to her by Oppius and not wanting to live with the shame of rape or having to bear his off spring...she flung herself to the ground before the horrified masses.

Rome…..exploded in violence. Led by a Lieutenant of the 3rd Legionares, Brutus Gracilis...the Wolves of rome stormed the palace, tore Oppius to shreds and burned "Quintus the Ripper" to death. Brutus then proclaimed that Rome would never again allow a King to reign over the free people. The monarchical system was dead. To be replaced by a yearly elected "bi-consolaria (Two wolves chosen by vote to govern for one year equally) a system that would survive until the rise of Lupine Rome's first Cesaria Maximi (Cesar over all) in the 400th year of Rome's 900 year existence.

**Wars, wars, wars and wars….From defense to devastate. Lupinian Rome under the Counselors. **

To keep this writing as brief as possible, we will not go too detailed into all the Counsels and Pro-Counsels and the intricate nature of Lupinian Rome's political and governmental functions in the time between the end of the Monarchical age and the beginning of Cesaria Maximi.

The between period between these two leadership extremes however was occupied by expansion, conquest and war, a plethora of all three. Romans were always told that "this legionary expedition" or "That legionary expedition" was done in the name of self-defense or the defense of some one else. When it came to predatory settlements, if alliances could be formed then Rome went to war to defend sed settlements. If alliances could not be formed and those settlements sat on or offered something useful to Rome….Rome just took them. If the settlement was full of pray mammals? Roman burned it, sacked it, raped it and brought the survivors back to be...slaves or dinner snacks.

Two internal Civil Wars occurred during this period in years 236 and 370 which began to shift Rome towards the end of Republican government. Rome also fought five major wars, the worst and the one most threatening the Roman state was between years 237 to 245 with the Tusker Confederation and the way that war ended was to say the least….comical. The hero of this conflict who was crowned "Lupis Roma Deus Savitorium Affectionado" (god savior of Wolfen Rome we love you) was not a wolf….he was little bobcat.

The Tuskers, a Confederation of War Elephants and Rhinos, swept down from the far northern plains in year 237 and after destroying four legions and ravaging many Romanized settlements; threatened the city state itself. Destroying a haste-fully cobbled together "Grand Legion" north of the natural barrier known then as the Verdia rift gorge (Where the Tundra Town south wall sits today) the Tusker's leader Tantorius Getorex demanded Rome's unconditional surrender or he would trample it to dust, erase its memory from history and sell every Wolf maiden into dog cages and perpetual whoredom. To give emphasis to his warning, he sent back barely alive the head Counsel of the Grand Legion that had been destroyed...minus his tail, his claws, his teeth and his pride was …."well overly abused".

Rome was in a panic. Thus entered….Rufus Lynx. Simple farmer, raiser of wines and grains….who was not and never had been a soldier. But two things Rufus Lynx did seem to possess? Male organs the side of steel beach balls and a quick whit.

Rome had only one way to span the natural defile of the Verdia Rift Gorge, the bridge of Mersali (Today it is the where central highway gate on the southern wall of Tundra Town stands or so the story goes.). It was here that Rufus Lynx arrived to see the beaten and abused masses of wolves from the Grand Legion streaming home. He went from Wolf to Wolf, Predator to Predator beckoning them to stand. Out of hundreds, he was lucky to find seven wolves who rallied to his angry snarling and hissing.

Stripping another Wolf of his armor, sword, arrow quiver and javelin...Rufus devised a plan and sent the seven wolves to his home to gather oil, pitch and his fur grooming kit. When they returned, Rufus told them of his plan which they thought was suicidal. "We stand here or we run home to coward. Better to die here on our feet than home under our beds." He told them.

Dawning the legionnaire armor and preparing himself, the young Lynx waited on the Rome side of the bridge for the forces of Tantorius Getorex to arrive. Coming up to the end of the bridge, the war elephants and Rhinos noticed a lone Roman soldier at the other end screaming and hissing at them in a rage and daring them to come across and battle with him.

Upon closer inspection of this obviously suicidal soldier. The elephants and Rhinos noticed that patches of fur were missing from his face and body and where his skin lay bare, splotches of red shown. Worse yet….foam was pouring from the small cat's mouth. To them….Rufus was sick with mange, rabies or a terrible disease that would surely kill him soon enough.

"Why do you wait!" Rufus screamed and hissed. "Are you all cowards! Come and fight me! Come and I will kill all of you!" Then...to show he was not only fool hearty but deadly serious...Rufus snatch up the bow he'd taken off a soldier, affixed an arrow and with almost deadly precision….sent a bolt flying true into the eye socket of Tantorius Getorex's second in command, killing him instantly!

While the wild feline taunted and berated the confederated army, his seven wolf compatriots were climbing over the underside of the bridge coating it with oil and pitch and when they had cleared themselves...they put the underside of the bridge to the torch!

At one point while the underside burned...Rufus went into a screaming charge across the span, waving his sword, holding up his ridiculously over-sized shield, and demanded the Elephants and Rhinos fight him. He then was said to have looked right at Tantorius Getorex and snarled….

"_I don't know what beast birthed you? But she must have been the most reviled and ugly whore to have ever walked on land. And as for the dirty Socialator (Roman word for pimp) who raped her? He must have been so hideous as to make the god's wretch!"_

Blind with fury, Tantorius Getorex charged onto the bridge with two platoons of his army determined to put the maniac little cat's head on a pike and have it lead him into Rome. Much lighter and certainly quicker...Rufus ran over the now flaming bridge span and made it onto the Roman side of the Verdia Rift. The bridge, bearing too much weight for its' burned up span….shattered into splinters and sent Tantorius Getorex and most of his senior captains to their deaths on the rocks below…

The remaining elephants and Rhinos. Deprived of their leadership, the bridge and having no engineers among them...retreated.

Rufus' seven wolf compatriots hoisted him high over their heads in great joy, throwing him in the air, singing songs and crying the news forward until all of Rome was wild with joyous cheer! Since soldiers could not enter the city itself because of the law...Senators took the young Lynx and carried him in a great triumph to the Senatorial hall where a special seat was brought out. A crown of laurels was placed on Rufus's head, a robe of purple was wrapped around him, a baton of victory placed in one of his paws and all of the Senate bowed low to the floor to proclaim him the citizen's gawd. The President of the Senate then told Rufus Lynx that nothing would be denied his asking. All of Rome waited to hear his words…

Rufus Lynx could have had anything he desired and yet his answer endeared him in mammalian legend for all time to come…

"_I desire no such ostentation and deserve no such magnanimity. I did what desperation and duty called me to do and having done such? I only wish to go home and go to bed."_

Rufus took off the robe, the laurel ring, kept the baton of victory and quietly walked out of the Senate house. When his words spread through the throngs awaiting to adore him, they reacted as he wished with simple tokens of affection and quiet appreciation. Rufus Lynx did as he said he would, he went home to his small farm, stacked his armor in a corner of the hut, climbed into his bed and went to sleep. Years later it was how the great hero of Rome was found when he died and in accord to his wishes there were no grand memorials, no great buildings and no spectacular tomb to remember him by.

Perhaps there is a basis of fact to the story? When engineers began to construct the Southern Wall of Tundra town over the Verdia Rift...several skeletons of large Elephants and Rhinos were discovered at the bottom of the gorge. But fable or not, Rufus Lynx remained a powerful image of aspiration for admired Roman and Mammalian virtues. In the corruption poisoned later years of the Lupinian Roman Empire...Rufus Lynx was an image the citizens of Rome longed for against the largess and selfish supreme powers enjoyed by the Caesars. Rufus Lynx was an example of pure selflessness, of forsaking self and reward out of duty, honor and concern for country. He is still spoken of today with affection to cubs and among older mammals alike as an example of behavior and a watch word against power seekers and politicians alike. In a sense...a tomb would have been a little too grand a way to remember him. His very name does that quite enough.

**Conquests and consequence: Falling into the Roman orbit or under the Roman claws.**

Lupinian Rome's sweep of the known world now encompassing Zootopia, The Tri-Buroughs and all of the lands to the seas that make up our own large continent is staggering considering the span of time in which the Empire performed the feats of road building, bridge building and difficult land forming engineering. The Roman Legions were machines of efficiency but Rome was not just about conquest and war. She was hungry for talent, knowledge, skill and education. Lupinian Rome practiced a multi-prong approach to diplomacy, at least when it came to other predators. To pray animals however….Rome practiced absolute barbarism.

If Roman Legions came upon wolf tribes, packs or villages, she approached them as beloved kin and where they didn't posed a threat, Rome would leave them alone….except….they would "sales pitch" the glory of Rome like your typical door to door sales mammal. It was "Anim-way" (AMWAY) on steroids. Wolf tribes would be encouraged to share information, knowledge, education and in exchange Rome offered them society, belonging, kinship, trade, food and above all protection from harm. To lay one tip of any body part on a Wolf tribe or pack was to invite Rome like a "bully smasher" at a school yard brawl. The bully was going to get his snoot bashed in.

If the Legions came upon a tribe of predators like a pride of Lions or a Tiger pack. If they offered no threat to Rome, they would get the sales pitch, offers of alliance, trade and food in exchange for knowledge. If the group of predators was large enough however to threaten Rome? War would surely break out and usually the wars didn't last very long. Yet for Predators, Roman terms were generous and lavish enough to pacify further thoughts of opposition.

If the Legions fell upon a pray village however...horror and bloodshed were the terrible results. Pray villages and societies would be torn to shreds and burned to the ground, the land to be taken over by Roman settlers later. The old, the infirm, the sick and most of the adults were killed. The younger pray mammals were thrown into slavery or sent to their deaths to feed and please the empire.

Foxes, because of the old legend of Romulus and Remus, avoided making settlements and survived where they could. If a fox and his family were caught by the Romans? They were tortured, often skinned alive or chewed and beaten till they bled to death. Their tails hung from Legionary standards, their entrails and private parts were boiled for soups, their skulls were collected as macabre trophies in the homes of the Roman elites. Foxes to Rome were enemies of the state to the extreme and only their cries from torture would be satisfaction. By the time Rome fell….foxes were ranked number 2 on the continental species threatened with extinction.

**Slavery in Lupinian Rome. Walking or walking dead.**

Lupinian Rome was built on the backs of slaves. Sometimes fed by the fat and flesh of slaves as well. Slavery took on many forms within the capital city. Contrary to popular belief, a great number of slaves in Rome….were Romans because second to gladiatorial games….suing the hell out of your neighbor for looking at you wrong sometimes made you his slave and came off as good theater. Debt slavery reached insane levels in Rome by the year 500 of its' existence, one writer remarked that there were more lawyers per square foot in the forum than there were bricks on the floor. Romans sued each other, counter sued each other and sued everything not nailed down for ludacris reasons more than legitimate ones and there were always the "ambulance chasers" ready to offer their services and accuse anyone of causing heart failure. Uncontrolled howling was said to be the number one record offense for a law suit. The ancient wolf chronicler Livy wrote….

"_Flavius Faustus, a young wolf in good standing was brought into the court by a young female wolf named Opsia who sued him for an exorbitant amount of money because he appeared to howl a little during a greeting which she suspected looked lurid and offending. She almost had him as a slave when on the next day he counter sued her claiming she was casting her eyes upon his private parts a moment too long for a proper female wolf of Rome. He even produced seven witnesses confirming that Opsia was a filthy female of the brothel district who gave them crabs and scabees. It just proves that if you have the money? You can get any actor to call anyone a whore."_

Law suits and other legalities in fact were more lucrative a venture than slavery itself and for a predator taken as a slave in the many Roman wars, the vast throat cutting industry of law was the best and fastest way to regain your freedom. Perhaps it was a form of poetic justice when former predator species slaves got their freedom then turned around to become lawyers and trial judges. "Put me in chains? Now I'm going to bite you were it hurts puppy dog…..your change purse!" And yes I am not talking about the low hanging change purse.

Predators taken as slaves during conquest wars found their lot difficult yet merciful. Many predators were educated by their masters to become accountants, teachers, trash collectors and other small time jobs Romans would not soil their paws over. A predator slave was evaluated annually and if they were found to be no threat to the Empire, they were ordered released then offered to work for their citizenship as compensation for their years of ill treatment. With predators, Rome was looking to build, expand and cultivate allies and citizens not enemies. Very few predators taken as slaves chose to leave Rome. More than a few became not only rich but eventually attained enough wealth and power to serve in the Senate itself.

And then….there were the prey mammals. Their lives were a living hell. Rabbits, Pigs, Sheep, Goats, Deer even mice were fodder to be butchered for dinner plates or tortured and worked until they died. Whole industries were built around meat production. Auction houses, stock farms, slaughter houses. Many of Rome's districts stank of blood and the bi-products of depriving a mammal their life and their identity. Female pray mammals,if they were young, were thrown onto large breeding facilities where they were forced to birth litters of cubs and kits without rest that they knew would end up in a meat market. Many of them found peace in waiting for a Roman guard to fall asleep so they could impale themselves on swords or lances.

If you were a deer or a goat? you were hitched to carts or sleds and worked till you dropped dead. If you were a pig? You were worked in the mines or thrown to the meat processors. Over half of all prey animal youngsters ended up butchered or thrown into the arena where they were ripped apart by wild feral lions and Mastiff dogs. Around the city were meat shops called the "captionem ostium commutationem" or "Trap door exchanges" where prey youngsters were bid upon as they stood on extended platforms out from a stage and forced to expose and dance themselves before salivating predators. A winning bid meant a noose around the neck and slow strangulation as the trap door below the feet slowly gave way. The crowd of predators who gathered around the stand reveled in the awe of watching a poor prey child cry, struggle, suffer and lose their bowels as they died swinging.

Cubs were cooked alive in ovens or skewered skillfully through their tail holes and out their mouths so they would struggle and scream as they were cooked to death. To Rome...prey animals were created to be harvested, exploited, abused and eaten. Yet one incident involving a pray mammal was a noted exception. That prey Mammal was the most gifted genius of the Common Middle age, Archimedes.

Archimedes lived in a rare society for the Common Middle Age, the Seleucid Incorporation, a mixed predator/ pray safe haven fashioned by mammals determined to stand against the brutality and might of Rome. The Seleucid held out for a long time against continued Roman attempts to attack their city because of the genius of the near hermit like old bunny who devised defenses no one had seen or experienced, among them the famous Archimedian death ray that harnessed the suns power to set wolves on fire. The Death Ray and other inventions of Archimedes caused so much trouble for Rome that the Senate decreed at any cost that Archimedes must be taken alive.

So it was that a pro-counsel named Marcus Numonis led two legions against Seleuca, the small city state and by infiltration through the water supply below, he conducted a night assault. His legionares killed the gate guards, opened the gates and the legions set upon the poor Selucids in an orgy of murder while searching for the famous genius. Problem was? The Romans were absolutely blinded by their hate of prey mammals and of course Archimedes….was a prey mammal.

A solitary Wolf happened to come upon the great genius by chance. He stumbled into a large room where, on the floor, a massive math problem was written in chalk with the genius toiling away at it. So much for two plus two equals four….the soldier only saw a tasty food item with chalk in his paws…

The Roman solider pushed Archimedes and demanded to know where Archimedes was. The old bunny simply replied..."Go away, can't you see I am busy?"

The soldier with one swipe of his sword, chopped the great genius's head off.

Moments later, one of Archimedes's students, just happened to be a fox, came into the room and recoiled in horror. "Oh Father! You've killed the genius!" The fox yelped.

The soldier snatched the fox up by his neck and demanded to know where Archimedes could be found. When the fox pointed to the decapitated body on the floor...the soldier slit his throat.

In their blindness, two Roman legions deprived Rome and the world of the most talented mammals of the age. They set Selucia to the torch and burned a wealth of ancient knowledge.

The Senate however, understood completely what this tragic mistake cost. They flew into a rage when they found out Archimedes had been killed. The wolf who killed him was de-fanged, de-clawed, Neutered and thrown out of Rome along with Marcus Numonis. It was probably the only time any Romans cared for a pray mammal's death.

**Next: The rise and fall of Cesar, the apex of empire.**

Before we continue….we must review how Lupinian Roman Government and governance morphed from the beginning with Romulus to the beginning of the end of Republican government in activity even though it continued as a sort of red curtain hiding a puppet master who manipulated a vision the masses were drawn to watch.

In the beginning with Romulus to the end of monarchy, The king was at the top and the Senate, the immediate representation of the populace or "Plebes" was below the King. Only those families identified as the founding families of the city state, wolves of course called the Patritian or Patriarchas (Parents), could be members of the Senate at first. Plebes and peasantry were excluded from ever moving up to the social status required to hold Senatorial office. At first the King was the judiciary who heard the petitions and the concerns of the plebes in disputes and could render judgments. The last king of Rome, who was an absolute tyrant...killed that concept.

With the death of the monarchy and the ascendancy of representative republican government, The state government body was re-organized into three separate but equal bodies with the powers in hand to check the power of the other two.

The Executas or Executive branch was composed of two Counsulari or counsels elected by the people and approved by the Senate to hold office for one year. The Counsels ran the foreign policy of the state and the military affairs such as commanding legions in combat.

The Senate of course was made up of the Praetorian class, the nobility. The Senate created laws, governed the exercise of foreign policy and more often than not...served their own interests and aggrandizement over the citizens. The Plebes, the Tribunes and the Senate were always at each others throats as the Senate tried constantly to increase their power over that promised to the plebian masses.

The Judaci or Judicial Branch was composed of Tributaris or Tribunes who served both to represent the legal concerns of the Plebes to the Senate and act as judges in affairs of law. The Tribunes could come from the upper strata of the Plebes (Lawyers, business owners, trade guild leaders) and were chosen basically for life or until they were found to be corrupt.

From the beginning of the Republic, voting was the most cherished right of the citizens. And of course over time...because oversight suffered hand in hand with the expansion of a horrific Middle Age bureaucracy, Voting was slowly being undermined and this eventually led to violence in the streets. The Second Roman Civil War came as the result of voting fraud which nullified the election of two popular counsels, replacing them with two inept candidates voted into office by the senate just in time for the first of two bloody slave revolts. The first was in the year 370 led by the scourge of Rome...Bambinus Blacktail and his lieutenant Ronocellus. But that is for another writing. Needless to say...like most slave revolt leaders, Bambinus didn't die peacefully...he died being eaten piece by piece...alive as his body was cut apart in the celebratory banquet!

It was because of the year 370 slave revolt that the course was set for the appearance of Julius Cesar on the Roman stage, but we must digress a little backwards in time to cover a wolf who had a yet unseen paw in helping Cesar to power. That wolf was Counsel Sinius Mesalla Mawlus, the father of the heavy mobile strike legions. But he's not remembered so much for how he re-shaped the Legions to fight in the wake of the war with Tantorius Getorex in the year 237 as much as where they would owe their allegiance and where they came form.

Mawlus made two important and far reaching changes to the Legionare system. He turned the army from one stacked only with the rich and privileged families to a career long, open to all, professional army with poor and rich members alike. It would also be the soul responsibility of the reigning Counsels of Rome to equip, train and care for these legions….including giving retirement benefits; which for Rome meant land ownership and certainly there was plenty of land to be given out...as most of it had been inhabited by pray mammals or subjugated city and nation states.

Mawlus turned the legions into efficient machines of death and destruction but he also made them dangerous to the Republic as legionaries didn't owe their lives and fortunes to the command of the State but to the Counsel who oversaw them. As would happen with Cesar...a counsel with a good education in oratory skills, was dangerous as a serpent. Only a strand of hair kept the counsels from turning their legions on the state and after the disaster of the slave revolt in 370, a counsel named Sulivas Graka became the first Legionary General to violate the sacred enclave of Rome like a drooling beast bent on raping a virgin.

After defeating Bambinus and his slave army, Graka wanted the Senate purged as he blamed them directly not only for the corruption that had caused his loss in the previous election (that led to the slave revolt disaster) but for daring to tell him that there would be no restored elections for the next two years and that he had to resign his Counsel-ship and wait for the restored election cycle. Graka wasn't going to wait for anything. Under the banner of "Send the patrician criminals to hell!" and "Return the voice to the Plebes!" Graka became the first Counsel of Rome to march his legions into the city, forcing the Senate to run for their lives and opening by force the participation in the Senate by the plebes, the citizenry.

Now Graka did promise that his actions were justified, they were only temporary to restore the spirit of the Roman constitution and he would abide by the results and the law to disband his army...once the election was held between himself and a populace candidate. That candidate called by a reading of noisy cheer reactions to the calling of several names, fell to a wolf named Haroldius Augustinian Graylus. Graylus wasn't a politician as much as he was a successful banker whom the Plebes had great respect for because he was a well known philanthropist, especially when it came to veterans of the legion. His affections for the soldiery had their ties to his older son Williamus who at the time Haroldius was being chosen, was off on a far distant campaign with a wolf and pro-counsel Haroldius patronized…

Julius Cesar.

By now perhaps you must be thinking...Graka has some legitimate beefs here, he sounds totally sincere, he's calling for an election and has asked the plebes to present a rival candidate for election. This Graka isn't so bad….

Oh yes he was. Did you really think for one moment that Graka didn't have the playing deck staked to his favor? Second only to Cesar, Graka had great oration skills, he was said to have a golden lyre for a mouth, and he was super ambitious. Yet….smooth talking doesn't mean you're going to escape scrutiny. So while Graka's putting this all together, a herald (a messenger) is riding his horse south towards what's now the tri-buroughs where another well known general is sitting with three full legions. This General is Cassius Pompeii. You can imagine how long it will take the Herald to reach him in this age of super slow snail mail. And by the way? Graka hates Cesar and Pompeii hates Cesar and Graka and Cesar's super ambitious like he's addicted to Savage serum. This has all the trappings of a three way cage match. It's going to get very messy.

Haroldius is caught in the middle of this crazy frakus of course and when he and Graka are in the forum debating, yes our ancestors did political debates, he brings up the notion that there should be a third party of overseers to this haste-fully cobbled together election to assure the nerves of the plebes and the nobility that everything is on the level...it's only fair right?

Except….Haroldius has been stacking the decks too….with Cesar's supporters. And...Graka doesn't know Haroldius is a patron of Cesar...at least not for the moment. This is really going to get messy. Except this whole crazy course of events is to intricate and too long for this writing so I will give you the quick summation.

Cesar wins. Graka commits suicide, Pompeii flees to what today is the Outback Islands, Cesar chases Pompeii, Pompeii is killed by the natives, Cesar falls in love with a stunning female fox…

Result…Cesar becomes a dictator and the Republic is…..dead, at least physically so. Keep in mind that curtain/puppet master concept I spoke of earlier. And it won't be long before Cesar...because of his hyper ambition...will turn on his sponsor Haroldius and set himself up for assassination and as a result...Lupinian Rome will begin the downward side of its' roller coaster peak.

**Next: The bridge and Cesar masters Rome.**

Before we come to the assassination of Cesar, we must go back 70 years before the year 370 slave revolt to year 300 when Rome faced a crisis. In the space of time between the attack by the Tusker Confederation in the years 237 to 245, the Tuskers sought to deprive Rome of her abundance in pray mammals on which the growing Republic required for both food and slave labor. The Tuskers invited desperate pray mammals to escape to their territory to the north, a vast expanse of wild wilderness beyond a natural defensive boarder, the mighty Roana River. Until Cesar...five Roman counsels would try to forge the unpredictable currents of the Roana with the forces needed for invasion. Five times those counsels were returned to Rome with their legions and their bodies cut to shreds. With pray mammals fleeing in great numbers, the predators of the Roman Republic could not survive long as they would be forced to deplete their on hand stocks of pray food and slaves. But of course the Romans were not ones to sit and belly ache on their troubles. Here was the birth of the Roman Navy.

But although the Navy could extend both conquest to other lands and provide Rome with abundant fish from the seas, that alone would not sustain the Republic. The answer lay in conquest of the Tusker land called by the Romans, Ispania. Other Roman generals thought the feat too impossible but they weren't Julius Cesar.

Cesar was unlike any Wolf general in the classical Lupinian sense. Born into lowly peasant stock, Cesar was a furnace when it came to both ruthlessness and ambition. He had an exceptionally keen mind which was fast thinking, fast adapting and as voluminous as a modern zip drive when it came to storing and recalling information. Above all else? Cesar listened to anyone who offered counsel, ideas or advice be they a lowly slave or a Patriarch…

"All crawlers and critters are my superiors, that I may learn from them." Was a standard that Cesar lived by. In oration he was astounding, in leadership he was unmatched, in brute force of will? If he'd ordered his legions to capture hell, they could probably have done it without batting an eye because they always knew that Cesar was with them.

In 372, with the Bambinus rebellion in its' second year, Cesar departed Rome with eight heavy legions 50,000 tigers, Lions, Panthers, Wolves and many other predators and slaves to do that which could not be done. When the Senate demanded to know his plans, Cesar replied simply..."I'm going to the meat market...do not disturb me."

He arrived at the southern banks of the Roana River in early year 373 and looked out over the imposing barrier curling his lips as he thought of a way to cross it. Then one day as he sat throwing stones into the water, one of his servants came up to him and tugged on his armor…

It was an otter named Questriatus who pointed out over the Roana and said to Cesar..."My father? Why do you not bridge it?"

Cesar simply looked at his servant and replied. "Why don't you prove that I can?"

Questriatus fetched a wind of rope and a stone and set out swimming over the Roana. He came back hours later to tell Cesar that though expansive with rough currents, the Roana was only 30 feet deep at best. Cesar went to his Chief engineer with the information. When the engineer told him how stupid it was to trust the advice of a slave? Cesar made his Chief Engineer a slave and his servant Questriatus both a free mammal and his new Chief Engineer.

The Questria Bridge at Roana became the most amazing marvel of engineering in the Middle Age, not only for its' design but for the speed in which Caesar built it. Nothing would horrify the Tuskers more as the Romans, with ant like industrial and mechanical efficiency, cut down the forest around them and followed Questriatus's directions to span across the Ronana. Cesar made sure that the Tuskers and their many inhabitants directed their worry and attention on his building project, enough of a ruse to allow part of his massive force to forge the river farther down stream.

Cesar gave the mission of the flanking penetration to Haroldius Augustinian Graylus's son Williamus Graylus. The order was simple….run wild, rape, kill and sew panic in the enemy rear. Graylus's "Lightening Legion of 5,000 troops , after forging the Roana by boats over two nights to the west of the bridge, slammed into the Tusker's Capital city of Chelsea far to the Tusker rear, just as the Questria Bridge touched the Tusker banks of the Roana….

What came after it was a brutal holocaust with the Tusker's caught in a vice. Cesar personally ripped the tusks out of the great grandson of Tantorius Getorex and roasted him alive over an enormous fire pit stoked with the fat from his entire family. In Year 375, Cesar "pacified" Ispania. It was a year later while ruling over the new province and sending thousands of its' pray mammals south to be butchered or made slaves that Cesar got word of the turmoil being caused by Graka in Rome. He left Ispania to a confident subordinate and two Legions while his remaining force sped south towards Rome.

As Cesar began his march back to Rome however...Cassius Pompeii was already on the outskirts of the city demanding that Graka disband his legions and step down from his self-proclamation of dictator. Still unaware that Haroldius Augustinian Graylus was a patron of Cesar and believing that Cesar was still in Ispania, Graka turned to the powerful banker Graylus to help him raise more legionares to face down Pompeii. Haroldius played a very dangerous game between the two powerful counsels, plotting to weaken both of them for Cesar's arrival.

Of course Graylus would help Graka fill his ranks...fill them with Cesarian loyalists. On October 28th, year 376 while facing Pompeii's legions outside of Rome...the Cesarian loyalists triggered a battle while Graka attempted to negotiate a deal with Pompeii. In the midst of this battle...the Cesarians abandoned Graka's right flank and Pompeii rolled over Graka's weakened lines like a wheat blade. Graka ran from the battle and promptly hung himself from a tree near the Forum.

Now for the second time, a Roman general entered the capital city with armed troops and as expected…Pompeii purged the Senate, sent soldiers to kill political opponents and promised the citizens that all would return as it was before…."just be patient and don't be stupid to resist." He then dispatched a herald (a messenger) to find Cesar and warn him to both disband his legions and never show his snoot through the gates of Rome. As if Cesar would listen. What Pompeii didn't know was that Cesar was already inside the gates. The first indication he had that his position was extremely dangerous was the yellowish glow outside his bedroom window as he slept one night in his mansion. Cesarian loyalists had quietly pounced upon the legionary barracks housing Pompeii's cavalry troops. They bolted the doors, shuttered and bolted the windows then set the buildings on fire.

It was a classic ruse tactic. As Pompeii's forces rose from their sleep to deal with the catastrophe...Cesars legions poured into the city through the four main gates and crashed into the still sleepy legions. Pompeii had been caught naked, his troops were spared if they surrendered, butchered if they did not. Pompeii was forced to flee with his remaining troops to the port of Cortona (Now Sahara Square) where he commandeered five war galleys and sailed into the open sea.

Cesar turned to his captains and pointed to Williamus Graylus…."You know what must be done? Set yourself to the task and don't disappoint me. Care for Rome, I chase after Pompeii."

**the White Siren seduces a Roman gawd.**

We've come to this point now in Lupinian Rome where Cesar has taken power, left Rome to be "reformed" (air quotes) according to his dictates by his most trusted subordinate Williamus Graylus while Cesar and a legion chase Pompeii across the seas because...Pompeii is a threat. He's a threat to Cesar more than Rome. So Cesar's not going to let Pompeii skulk away with his tail between his legs because….like Cesar….Pompeii is a very ambitious bastard.

Much we know about how Cesar wanted to "shape" or "re-shape" or "Restore" Lupinian Rome's governmental situation comes not from him but from third sources and they are not very reliable. Sadly with the great Roman fire that happened 200 years after Julius Cesar died, so went the great library and all that collected personal data Cesar wrote? Poof….gone.

So we have some thought writings from Cesar before this period when he was a mid-ling wolf, some of his campaign writings when he was trotting around with the Legions and even with this we don't have a clear idea of Cesar's vision.

We do know that he wanted to get rid of the counsel system. His proposal to the Senate was that he would serve four years to get things hammered out like corruption, favoritism, vote buying, influence peddling and then at the end of those four years there would be an election and from that point on a single counsel would serve a two year term and would have to be elected again to serve for two more years and so forth.

Another idea was taxes upon the wealthy patrician classes which would be deposited into a sort of populace welfare fund which Mammals could petition to if they were in dire straits, predators of course.

Another thing Cesar suggested "be done" which probably made him a lot of enemies? Place the prey mammals under a government controlled ration system, stop the reckless free for all smorgasbord buffet slaughtering that the predators in Rome had been doing since the founding. For prey mammals it didn't mean you weren't going to die...just that you were going to die….a little slower than before. And if you worked in the mines or pulled a cart? Your status wasn't going to change at all. Cesar saw the writing on the wall...at some point? The supply of pray was going to get pretty skimpy and that was a vulnerability Cesar wanted to manage.

But the biggest change in the government? The one which probably contributed to Cesar ending up dead? He wanted elections in the Senate to be an annual affair. Not only that? He wanted to allow the plebes to be able to form petition groups to challenge Senators if corruption was suspected. A lot of things were coming together to fashion a wick for a powder keg. The only reason Cesar's enemies didn't consider lighting the wick while Cesar was gone? They knew Williamus Graylus would not play nice with his toys. Remember that individual behind the curtain idea? The senior Graylus was that individual.

But...onto Pompeii's dilemma. Pompeii fled to the closest mammal enclave that might offer him salvation. This was the island / continent of Anakato. Now there is no "Anakato" today, this is where the Outback Islands are. The reason Anakato doesn't exist any more is that at one time it was a huge volcanic caldera and 219 years after Cesar was assassinated in the Roman forum...Anakato blew itself, and the civilization that sat on it...to oblivion.

And what was interestingly special about Anakato? It was populated by foxes called the Minotians. Now why didn't Rome invade and slaughter the whole culture? Because the Minotians were skilled in politics, persuasion and hospitality. Basically...they had a lot of things the Lupinian Romans needed, they had the slaves to deliver it and bribery was a cultural specialty.

Yet as Pompeii approached, the society at that moment was plunged into civil war, actually the result of a violent divorce. The Minotian royal blood line was perpetuated through incest and the latest married pair of foxes had a falling out.

There was the brother named Palomi who held the throne and had only recently, by the time Pompeii set foot in the harbor of the capital city, booted his sister / wife into the wilderness. Her name was Cassiopeia and if you think generations of incest might end up affecting the gene pool when it came to looks and brains? Well….the affliction missed Cassiopeia. With white fur as white as a cloud or a blanket of snow and an exceptional genius to accompany it? Cassiopeia was both Beautiful and extremely cunning. Her spies reported to her the arrival of this influential Wolf named Pompeii and the situation he had found himself trapped in.

Cassiopeia set herself to using the unfortunate Pompeii to her advantage knowing that Cesar was hot on his tail and foolishly Palomi had chosen to offer Pompeii protection and deal with the incoming angry war wolf. Palomi installed Pompeii in a guarded family villa north of the capital city. Perhaps someone should have informed the young fox king that the family villa had tunnels running all under it.

Cassiopeia's forces caught Pompeii while he slept and dragged him from the villa under the eyes of his remaining troops and into the forest. And there he was garroted to death. You can imagine Palomi's shock when Cesar entered the palace demanding Pompii be brought to him but there was no Pompeii to speak of. Of course Palomi blamed Cassiopeia.

Cesar warned Palomi that he had two days to produce Pompeii alive and bring his sister to him or all bets of the Minotian society continuing into the future were off. Cesar retired to his encampment to await the result.

Did I previously mention that Cassiopeia was not only dangerous and dangerously beautiful but also dangerously daring? Disguised as Minotian traders, two foxes gained entry into the camp, arrived at Cesar's tent and unrolled the naked fox princess before Cesar's feet from a rug.

"Mighty and glorious Wolf." Cassiopeia said as she bowed herself low before Cesar. I Cassiopeia offer myself to be despoiled at your willing. Do with me as you desire." She then turned her tail to him and spread herself willingly before him.

Cesar was taken by the Princesses boldness. He threw a sheet over her rump and pulled her to her feet "And tell me why I shouldn't turn you back over to your brother the King? The way he explains? You are devil not to be trusted."

"Forgive me great Cesar." Cassiopia replied. "I come bearing news of your enemy Pompeii. My brother is a vile liar and distasteful scum. He killed Pompeii and planned to spoil the body in vile and disgusting ways believing it would curry your favor. He lies! I had the body stolen and prepared as a Roman deserves to be prepared and honored in death."

Cesar demanded to see Pompeii's body. He followed Cassiopeia to where she had spirited away the dead Roman Counsel and sure enough, the body was superbly cared for and prepared for an honorable burial. The elegant and respectful preparations impressed Cesar.

"Why did you go to all this trouble? You knew he was my bitter enemy? How do you know I would have treated him as you have so respectfully?" Cesar asked the stunning female fox.

"Because he is a citizen of Rome and you are its' dear heart." Cassiopia replied. By the force of her own will or by the aid of some potion or maybe a pheromone...the white fox had drawn Cesar to her side…

"It would seem that the wrong member of the family is on the throne." The great wolf warrior snarled. The next day, Cesar showed up with Cassiopia in Palomei's throne room along with a beaten and abused fox who fingered both the King and his grand Vizier's "diabolical plot" to do the most unspeakable horrors upon the former dead Counsel of Rome.

"So? You dare to even think of debasing the body of a citizen of Rome?" Cesar snarled. He quickly had the two of them taken prisoner and installed Cassiopia on the throne of Minotia. He then had the two horrified foxes put before the legion…

"Show these curs the joy of Roman hospitality in your tents." Needless to say...they didn't last long. Yet their screams as they were abused over and over again were enough to pacify the population of thoughts of revolt. What was left of them was impaled on trees as a clear warning not to anger Cesar. Of course the Minotian civil war was over.

Cesar spent a year in Minotia getting to know the culture and especially the beauty who had him at her every whim and call. By the time Cesar was getting ready to go back to Rome, he had known her well in her bed and she had bore him a son.

**Next: Kill the Heretic, Blasphemer and tyrant with his whore! The death of Cesar.**

All told, it took two years for Cesar to finally get back to Rome and in that time, Williamus Graylus had stuck firm to implementing the reforms Cesar had tasked him to despite repeated attempts by members of the Senate and the high social classes to bribe and influence him into turning against Cesar for his own dreams and ambitions. He survive two attempts to kill him, one intercepted by his own younger brother Alexander as written by the Roman scribe Scinectaus…

"_Williamus Graylus was making way through the public forum when an assassin, cloaked in his four legged form as a family pet who had slipped from their master, ran through the forum being chased by the screams of his handler. When Williamus grabbed the leash to restrain the animal, the assassin took on his two legged form and prepared to drop a killing blow on the Tribune. The younger Graylus brother Alexander, a playful cub who always carried a wooden gladius, reacted swiftly. Knocking the killing blade from the assassin's paw while his faithful slave, a young goat, tackled the offending wolf off his feet. The young Alexander then proceeding to beat the assassin to death."_

Williamus instituted the prey rationing reforms, the reforms to clamp down on vote buying, influence peddling and corruption and strove to clean both the Senate and the higher classes of those who would resist Cesar's dictates. Williamus was the public face of Cesar, his father was the figure behind the curtain as both the purse and the silent persuasion. Cesar's enemies chose to lay low and bide their time till his return.

Cesar returned as expected with his new wife and his then toddler son in tow yet secretly so. While he might have been able to swoon his own close at hand legions to accept the stunningly beautiful fox queen of Minotia, it would be far different when it came to a populace born, bred and educated to see every fox as a mortal enemy of Rome.

The city held a great triumph parade for Cesar, a spontaneous entry made mostly from the plebes who saw Cesar as a liberator from what they felt was the ever growing lack of concern and corrupted nature of the patricians and the Senate. The writer Scinectaus described the speech Cesar gave upon his entry into the public forum…

_Cesar stood on the steps of the portico of the temple to the Lupin moon gawd and declared an end to the years of tumult that plagued our dear city. He pardoned his enemies, called us to remember our sacred bonds of pack and paw and promised to hold himself to limited rule until the Republic was again on sure and stable grounding. He adamantly refused calls of monarchy, denied a crown of laurals thrust into the noble Williamus's paws and affirmed solidly that the law forever bound the high and the low equally and low to those who would alter its' sacred day ended in great joy."_

Joy perhaps for some, not for all. The next event is clouded in fog, Cesar going to the temple of the Oracle to offer a sacrifice and seek her guidance on the course for Rome once his task was complete. Three days later the Oracle emerged in a flowing gown of white before a throng and pronounced a shocking revelation concerning the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. The Writer Scinectarus…

_The holy oracle emerged in a trance before the throng and declared that all which had been handed down concerning the treachery of the fox Genifax. As the oracle related the visions, she declared that the gawds were testing the brothers and they failed this test by becoming angry and turning to violence and murder and that Rome would forever be cursed with the blood of the innocent she had wrongly convicted through Romulus's attempt to hide his crime. The only remedy lay in clemency and forgiveness and she urged the throng to end the persecution of the foxes and restore their rights as fellow predators. Whatever the Oracle declared was meant to be taken as holy law._

While the plebes in the majority accepted what the Oracle had declared. The nobility detected a rat. It was well known that Cesar had spent hours in the temple when all one usually did was bring their questions in script and spend less than a few minutes. Given that Cesar was in Minotia for some time...many of the nobles were putting two plus two together and coming up with stink. When Cesar announced the Oracle's words and declared he would follow her pronouncement to grant clemency to all foxes within the empire? Stink turned to nose curling. Then…..Cesar produced Cassiopia and their son Cessai. Nose curling turned to teeth snarling rage.

While he didn't openly declare Cassiopia his wife, the resemblance of her toddler cub to being part wolf and part fox couldn't be hidden. One thing to say foxes should be given clemency...another for a wolf to father a filthy hybrid bastard from a fox slut. That was unpardonable. The last insult that struck the match to the wick was when Cesar proposed an "equal alliance" with Minotia. Rome was equal to no one, certainly not equal to filthy foxes, I'm speaking as to Roman superior sentiments.

The nobles and the members of the Senate who'd been scheming to take Cesar down hinted on a plan to expose Cesar as another monarchical tyrant in waiting plotting with his fox bitch to put their hybrid little bastard on the throne. To do this, the Senate invited Cesar to the Senate house where by unanimous vote they wished to declare Cesar "Dictotatus Eternia" or "Dictator for Life" which they claimed was a life title that would allow Cesar to continue to advise those counsels that would come after him and his mandates would carry weight, yet Cesar refused the title at first until the Senate debated and decided to put the title on Cesar as a "Name only honorific." Which gave Cesar a permanent seat in the Senate chamber. Cesar accepted the honorific which sealed his fate.

The other thing which further sealed Cesars doom was the turning of Haroldius Augustinian Graylus to the conspiracy because of Cesar's "putrid" and unforgivable crime of mating with a fox. Yet the elder Graylus hid his secret actions from his older son while grooming his younger son Alexander to be solidly at his father's side, believing Williamus would naturally stay with his little brother. Not so...Alexander wasn't stupid. Playing the clueless cub interested more in play and his slave, Alexander was feeding his older brother information.

Yet the highest level of conspirators themselves were not stupid. There was a plot afoot to murder Cesar by the nobles….just not the time, the place or the stage on which it would happen.

Three years after Cesar returned from Minotia. The nobles tried one last time to turn Williamus to their side or engineer his death by requesting he appeal to Cesar and turn him from the course of actions he had set himself too. Yet Williamus remained fiercely loyal. The night before his death….Caesar talked long into the night with Williamus. Possibly throwing back and forth contingency plans should some move be made against Cesar or his wife and child.

The next day. The Senate was to meet in triumvirate session to bestow upon Caesar the honorary title of Dictator of Life. Absent from the occasion was Cassiopia, her son Cessai and Williamus. As Cesar took his place in a chair reserved for him, the President of the Senate read the parchment of proclamation. When he finished and as he was handing the parchment to Cesar's paws….the Senate President suddenly snatched Cesar's wrists and proclaimed…

"_Traitors deserve no mercy…..nor do their whores!"_

Senators and nobles sprang from their chairs and plunged their daggers into the struggling and screaming Cesar. The last as he staggered and stumbled over the blood soaked floor was the senior Haroldius Augustinian Graylus. Cesar cried out as he collapsed into Harolius's arms….

"_You two my beloved patron?"_

Haroldius snickered back…."Fear not...your whore will be well serviced before she dies. As for your bastard freak cub? He might take a while. Farewell treasonous wretch. My son Williamus will see well to your slut."

Haroldius stabbed Cesar right in the heart and ripped it in two before kicking the body away and joining the angry crowd of senators and nobles in doing all sort of vile abuses upon it. They then threw it from the portico of the Senate house and cried aloud…."Thus this be for tyrants and traitors of Rome!"

**Next: The rise of the Cesars, the death of Republica.**

Williamus had indeed turned against Cesar, the brutal proof was made more clear when the young Graylus returned to Rome and held up the blood soaked and abused body of Cassiopia before the throngs in the forum declaring once again that the foxes were engaged in witchcraft and magic potions trying to overthrow the eternal city and its' citizens. He cut off the white fox queens tail and threw her remains to the crowd to be torn apart among themselves as a sickening trophy.

Haroldius Augustinian Graylus Immediately invoked emergency powers and seeing that his son was the most able and senior military officer in Rome...for the past years of turmoil had killed off a cream top of tallent, Williamus was named the title of Grand Counsel General of the Legions. The powers of the Senate were forever altered, reduced to working only the affairs of the city. Haroldius Augustinian Graylus declared himself supreme ruler and took the title of Cesar for himself, becoming Cesar Augustus. His first move….to hunt down and punish every last Cesarian supporter of Julius Cesar and send the Roman Navy and three heavy legions to Minotia to…..as he put it….wipe the tail hole of the world clean of retched red bushy tailed bastards.

Yet two things erupted to stop Augustus in his tracks. Cesarian supporters attacked the naval yard and the naval boat yard, burning and sinking the Navy's wooden ships and destroying the boat building yard. Wide spread desertions and acts of dissent sprang up within the legions that took another year to quell. And as if things could not get worse...a plague of rabies swept through Rome. Only by keeping three legions far beyond the city was the threat of attack from some as yet undiscovered enemy prevented while thousands of prey and predators suffered or were forced to be killed when they were beyond hope. Tragically...word reached both Augustus and Williamus of the death of their son and brother Alexander who had only joined the legions himself as a young recruit. Ravaged by the disease, the last time Alexander was seen he was foaming at the mouth and dragging his screaming slave towards a cliff overlooking the Tyber River. For Williamus the loss was devastating made more painful by his father's absolute callousness. "I can always have another brood." Augustus is written to have said.

The reign of Augustus marked the end of the Roman Republic in spirit and physicality. From here on would come the Cesars to the end. Ten would rule over Rome until first she broke in half, then she died. Yet each of these maximum leaders would leave something to be praised while leaving much to be reviled, save two of them and one would be a surprise no one in Rome saw coming.

Augustus would reign for the next 16 years and yet his plans for Minotia would escape him. He dies in his bed after declaring Williamus his successor. Yet Williamus does something totally unexpected the day after his father dies, He calls for a general election after telling the Senate…

"_I'm more a soldier than a bureaucrat, just make sure you find a good bureaucrat because I don't want to be a bad soldier."_

In a stunning shock...the next Cesar is not a wolf...but a lion. Cesar Africanus was a well respected jurist and legal-mammal whom the plebes believed was the hope for great reform. Over his 18 year reign...Africanus does reform the criminal justice system, the tort system, even showing some grace for slaves by ordering a two day mandatory period of rest and reduced brutality in corporal punishments the slaves are exposed too. However...He orders the building of a grand new coliseum where predators deemed criminals, innocent or not, and pray animals are thrown before throngs to fight each other or be executed in gruesome spectacles. From this comes the second slave revolt led by a black panther named Spartigira which becomes the most dire threat to Rome since the first Tusker war. Once again, Rome turns to it's senior warrior, Williamus Graylus and in the resulting bloody meylee with Spartigira...Graylus is killed. Spartigira is wounded by arrows in his legs and is taken prisoner.

The revolt comes at the worst possible moment for Rome. With legions scattered about the great expanse of the empire, the city is ripe for invasion and invasion comes from the sea as in the middle of the night a fleet of war galleys' land on the shores of what is now Sahara Square beach. The invasion force rolls over a lightly garrisoned Legionnaire outpost west of Rome yet spares most of the troops inside who look upon the leader of this incursion force with quaking fear. He is a tall white wolf...with a foxes tail. He is Cessai, Son of Cesar and Cassiopeia who has returned to claim his birthright to Rome. He has also brought something the Romans are not used to fighting...horse mounted mobile cavalry….with riding foxes. It is the Minotian cavalry and they make their presence unmistakable when they speed past the gates of Rome and cut down the guards with arrows shot on the run as the Foxes stand on their horse's backs.

Africanus sends heralds racing from the city to recall the far flung legions to aid the capital city, the closest legion being that of the wolf vice counsel Restitutious (The 14th heavy legion) less than 20 miles from Rome. Until the fourteenth can arrive, Africanus mobilizes the Pretorian Guards Legion and stacks it with retired veterans, even predator slaves and prisoners. Yet when he calls for Spartagira, offering him clemency in return for his help….Spartagira replies. "The demon of hell is at your door. Perhaps it is not me who should be bowing?"

Two days later, the Praetorian Guard and Cessai's force meet out on the fields of Particula (South of Rome which is now Southeast Savana Central) and crash into each other in brutal hand to hand combat while the Minotian cavalry races into, out and around the battle picking off Roman soldiers at will. At one point the Pretorian Guards rally, successfully driving the Minotian cavalry from the field. If the fourteenth legion would show up, victory would surely be in the paws of Rome.

Sure enough….the flying standards of the fourteeth legion come over a rise in the hill covered ground of the battlefield and the Pretorian Guard surges in a charge against the weakening line of the Minotian infantry. The Writer Scinectarus…

_The Pretorian Guards surge forwards assured that their brothers of the fourteenth would crash into the line of filthy foxes and put those devils to flight. But as some of them watched the fourteenth thunder closer...their standard bearers suddenly threw their flags away, pulled out their Gladius swords and followed after their leader on horseback who screamed out as he waved his own sword…_

_FOR CESSAI! FOR THE STATE! FOR THE CITIZENS! KILL THEM IF THEY REFUSE TO SURRENDER!"_

It was Alexander Graylus, once believed to be dead, leading a charge of Cesarian loyalistswho had escaped his own father's treachery. His legion slammed into the Praetorian Guards and they simply melted like wax under hot blades. Africanus and Rome were at the mercy of these new invaders and all expected a gruesome spilling of blood.

**Next: The Fox tailed Wolf and the prophet of peace and doom. **

Cessai entered Rome at the head of his armed cavalry to what must have been quaking fear from the Plebes, the average Roman citizen. He was tall, muscular, bleach white with deeply set and serious looking blue eyes. He had the look of a wolf except the long and preened bushy tail which was definitely fox-like and like a fox, Cessai had two slaves carry it off the ground lest it get dirty. Behind the cavalry came the Legion of Alexander Marcus Graylus which had swelled to include not only those soldiers of the 14th spared death but now much of the Pretorian Guards. They descended on the Senate house where Cessai entered after his archers stormed the building and ringed the chamber with drawn bows. Inside were those Senators who knew running they would just die tired and Africanus who stood defiant at his Senate seat as Cessai walked up. The Writer Scinectarus…

_Africanus made no attempt to move nor show any deference to Cessai who stood firm with his eyes pointed as if they would set the lion on fire. Cessai simply said…."You are not the issue and are quite the innocent party in this affair. I wish not to waste your life which is of value to the nation. Step aside, don't force me to kill the people's champion."_

After a few minutes of tense stand off...Africanus simply stepped back and allowed Cessai to take the seat. The Writer Scinectarus…

_Cessai scowled at the Senate then turned to Alexander who stood blocking the doorway of the chamber. "Bring me the one called Spartagira?" He asked. After a time the leader of the slave revolt was brought forwards and dropped at Cessai's feet. "You are a predator. What crime caused you to be a gladiator?" Cessai asked. Spartagira told Cessai that a Senator, Lucis Archanus, had slept with Spartagira's wife and that Spartagira had beaten the Senator senseless. To attack a Senator of Rome, if you were not a predator, was instant death. Cessai told Archanus to stand up then commanded Alexander to go up to him. Which he did so and then promptly…he slit Archanus's throat open and threw the dying wolf on the floor of the chamber. Cessai then asked Spartagira, "Do you have justice now?" and when Spartagira replied yes...Alexander plunged his sword into the Panther's back and killed him. Cessai then said..."And that's what you get for leading a slave revolt against Rome." It would seem that Cessai displayed his intentions for everyone else quite clearly._

Cessai first made it obvious to all that the persecution of foxes was over and done with, though he understood clearly that foxes would never come quickly out of their hiding places nor would they ever trust wolves again even if a hybrid of the two beckoned them, a trait which still sadly exists to this day. Look on any of our trains and see how far apart foxes will go never to sit near a wolf. He also made it clear that though there were armed foxes pointing arrows at the heads of the Senate, subjugation of Rome to anyone else was not going to happen. The Minotians would soon go home with a treaty of alliance in their paws and new slaves to work their many mines.

It was soon learned that Cessai's mother sacrificed herself to save her child, having asked Williamus Graylus to take her life so the attention would be drawn away while her infant son was carried to safety. Growing up in Minotia, educated in their culture and their science; Cessai returned to Rome not to dictate but to navigate. His first command...to encourage Romans to go study with the Minotians which was a very hard sell. But eventually a Roman city, a university would be founded where wolves sent to Minotia as children would come back as scholars, craftsmen, architects, metallurgists and explorers. Two of these wolf cubs would profoundly affect not only the future of Rome but of the world. One would become Rome's last good Cesar...if a tyrant could be called such. The other would set the spark that would eventually become the Great Predatorial Civil War.

A wolf named Aylar was not destined to be the pinnacle of a religious movement. Born to very wealthy plantation owners in the Roman village of Atlantia, he was sent as a cub to Minotia to study advanced agriculture coupled with slave management. Among the things he had to learn was the ritual slaughtering of a pray mammal to the Roman gods. When he was to eat his fill as part of the ritual….Aylar became violently ill. Suffering vomiting, dehydration and severe headaches when a horrifying vision came to him...one which would set him on the road to conflict with his own parents and his own nation.

Aylar returned to his family plantation when he was nineteen years old and his first startling act was when he passed by a young deer slave tied to a wagon wheel and being horribly beaten with a whip. Snatching the whip from his family's oversee'r, Aylar asked..."What has he done to deserve this?" When the oversee'r replied that the deer had given him a "smart look"...Aylar whipped the ovesee'r… "If I ever catch you disciplining a slave without my express command? It will be you I tie to this wheel."

Aylar cut the poor mammal from the wheel and carried him to his own bed to the shock of his mother Juliana yet she could say nothing as he had become the master of the plantation now that his father was dead for several years. "God will not hold back his justice upon us forever." Aylar warned her as he commanded his mother to care for the abused slave.

That night...Aylar went into the barn where his father "stored" the prey mammals reserved for meals and sacrifices and their reactions at his entry horrified him. From the writings of Aylar…

"_They were filled with horror. I reached out for one young goat and she shrieked with a piercing, plea filled wailing. Backing herself into a corner of the stall, putting her hoofed hands over her face. My heart was filled with rage. I could not stomach this cruelty no longer. Even after telling all of those in the barn that their lives would be spared, they refused to believe me. What had we reduced ourselves to….to do such cruelty upon our equals."_

_Aylar fired his over-see'rs, his task masters. He gathered their implements of punishment, the ritual cooking tools, the terrible shackles, the coal and wood reserved for the rituals to the Roman gods and he burnt them in a great fire. One of his house slaves, a bunny named Dimetor who would later become one of his first disciples came up to speak with him…_

"_Timidly came I to the Master and asked why he was doing this? He replied that it was the will of god. That if the world did not change, all of us would die. He then did something I had never experienced from my Master before...he picked me up, rubbed his head to my cheek and exclaimed..."I love you my little brother." I wept joyfully for I sensed he was not lying. That for the first time in years...I would live to an old age and not suffer a cruel death. I resolved that if the Master willed me, I would work with him in whatever he desired to do."_

The other slaves on the plantation saw the fire and heard the news of Aylar's words and timidly with great fear they approached the fire where Aylar stood. Knowing that giving them freedom would only put their lives in danger, he resolved to free them from much of their cruel burdens on the plantation. The writings of this late night event are called "The sermon of salvation" the basis of the Aylarin faith which would later set alight the Great Preditorial Civil War…

"_God will not withhold his wrath upon us. We have been given thought, yet we act with thoughtlessness. He has given us the knowledge of love, yet we are filled with hate. He has given us the means to be kind, yet we are beasts of brutality. We have taken his gifts and have denied his holy command. We butcher our brothers, boil their children, eat their flesh and deny their cries. We are not mammals, we are criminals and our crimes will not go un-judged. Less we are changed, we shall all alike be consumed. Fear not gentile brothers and sisters...bunny, goat, deer, mouse...god hears your cries, god knows your suffering, god is not blind to your innocence and god will avenge your blood."_

"_Gentle brothers and sisters...do not hate us preditors...pity us. Do not give place to wrath against us...mourn for us. If you work? Then do it joyfully. If you suffer? Then show them you suffer without fear. If it is your time to die? Then die without fear and cry for us. Change us not with fear and anger in your hearts but with hearts of love. Do good to those who abuse you. Speak kindness to those who would kill you. The day of gladness will not come tomorrow, it may not come in a hundred years….but if you persist, if you remain steadfast, if you meet death with love… that day will surely come. Do this…..it is god's will." _

"_I lighten your burdens as god commands. There will be no more sacrifices here. No more will children be torn from their mothers to be murdered. No more whips, no more cooking. No more slaving. No more death. Not among you nor among those I can save….not now, not tomorrow and not so long as I draw breath. Ease your hearts my brothers and sisters."_

When one slave spoke up. "Master! What you speak is treason! They will kill you!" Aylar replied. "My life counts for nothing. Let them kill me...they can not kill god."

The young wolf began to buy up slaves through out Rome, taking them back to his plantation where he ministered to them and cared for them. It was during this time that he welcomed one of the wolf cubs who had been with him during his time in Minotia, an arctic wolf named Penitus who would later become Saint Penitus, Bishop of Minotia…

"_To say I wasn't a little unsettled by what I saw going on around the Plantation would be an understatement. At first I thought Aylar was sick in the head, perhaps a little crazy but after a long talk...he could not be less than right. My dumb eyes were opened wide...I looked upon my paws and claws with contempt. We predators were filthy murderers and accomplices….we all deserved to burn in hell. There had to be better ways than this barbarianism against mammals who were too defenseless against us. Their slaughtering was so unfair."_

_**Next: Cessai's expansion wars. The prophet's challenge to Rome and the Hill of the 24 martyrs.**_

In the spanning years between the founding of Rome by Romulus and the rule of Cesar Cessai, Rome had grown from a small batch of huts on the river Tyber into a sprawling metropolitan city of over a million mammals packed into a maze of structures from multi-story brick buildings to elaborate warren holes. At the first hint of sun on the horizen, the narrow streets and sideways were packed with predators, slaves, visitors, vendors, shop keepers, sooth sayers, beggers, prostitutes, screaming cubs running to schools, pray animals being killed for meals or for rituals to the various pagan gods and mammals frustrated at every turn trying to find their way to work, to entertainment or even to their own homes. So bad was the over-crowding that one was often warned….When in Rome, write your will before you leave your house….and often that was true.

Cesar Cessai ordered mammals to leave, daily an Imperial herald would walk to a home or slap a notice on a door telling the occupants that land was available and plenty of it to spare. The crowded conditions were always a driving force for more land, greater empire, greater conquests. So the white wolf ordered Minotian engineers to do what they did best...build better ships so Rome could extend her reach. In the year 389 of Rome's existence...ran into the same immovable force that modern Zootopia now faces herself….the Kzinti.

The first Roman ships to arrive in Kzin found not a primitive predator culture but a war-like and well armed species that didn't show anything in the way of diplomacy. The first Romans to land on Kzinti soil...were killed, skinned and cooked as their horrified brethren looked on. To kill a Roman citizen was to invite war and in year 393, the first of two attempted invasions assaulted Kzin with three heavy legions; more than 20,000 predators. Fortune seemed to favor the Kzinti as a severe storm shattered the invasion fleet and those who survived to storm the beaches stood no chance against the far larger and more fiercer Kzinti warriors. The second invasion never made it to shore because for the first time in Roman history; a Counsel defied the orders of the Emperor. His words were simply..."I don't run a food delivery service."

Lucky for Rome...the Kzinti showed no intention of wanting to go anywhere. The Emperor Cessai order the waters around the Kzin home island off limits to any Roman vessel. Yet conquests continued to be made and where ever Romans ships landed...death and slaves was more often than not the result.

Rome was a crowded city yet it was also an open city where ideas, debates, theology and science were shared openly so long as they did not upset the "Pax status quo ante." or the "Peace of the Satus quo." Yet that is what Aylar was about to do. In the noise of the crowded forum as politicians, theologians, patricians, plebes and scholars snapped their teeth at each other and pointed paws around like they were writing in the air...Alyar simply sat upon a block of stone holding two toddler bunnies in his lap and began to preach. His target? Female predators with their own cubs and kittens in tow…

"_Mother? If they came to rip your child from your arms to kill them, would you not fight? Would you not give every last ounce and claw for your own cubs? Then why do you remain blind to the suffering of mothers like you?"_

Aylar was attacking what had always been taboo, even he knew his own family history, how his mother would remain in the house as his father's over-see'rs took screaming new born youngsters from their mothers to the slaughter house. It was never spoken to nor mentioned to predator females just where their meat at the local markets came from. The society went out of its' way to deliberately keep the truth from female predators. What Aylar was risking was certain death.

"_I Aylar Sythius Josephus am party to these crimes of my father and the silence of my mother. I hear the anguished cries of mothers who's babes are not out of suckle before their necks are broken, their heads removed and the mothers forcibly defiled over and over to repeat their torture. Look upon these cubs! They could be your sons, your daughters! We are not mammals, we are murderers! We have broken god's command and we shall all die!"_

In the surrounding noise of the forum, only a small number of female predators picked notice of the young wolf's words….but a few were enough to cause a torrent. The one who started it was a female lioness of the upper class named Snowinia…

"_I demanded of my husband, a proculator of the Imperial court, to show me these places the wolf Aylar spoke of and after much fighting and threats to leave him, he did so. The full horror of what was being done enraged me. I saw with my own eyes a young bunny who's babes were not weeks old screaming as they were pulled from her grasp and their necks rent before her, their lifeless bodies dropped to the floor without as much as a care by a scowling brute. I grabbed my husband and raked his face with my claws in a rage..."You lied to me!" I said to him. His calus reply..."They're only prey...why should they matter?" I then resolved to take our cubs and leave him. I was filled with disgust."_

Snowinia knew she not only had others who were now feeling the same as herself, she knew her position gave her enormous sway. Most of the early efforts were done to influence the powerful female wives or daughters of the "meat farms" In Some cases, it did not shut down the brutal institutions so much as change the ways they operated. Yet two of the ten largest farms did shut down when the female predator wives or daughters threaten to leave or with held sex or simply refused to serve the beck and call of their husbands. It was a small victory in a larger conflict to come.

Under cloaked orders and errands, Aylar sent his many disciples outward around Rome to spread scripture or minister to slaves on how they should act towards their masters and how they should face death. It was a campaign of kindness and denial...flood with kindness, deny the joy of blood lust. Slowly from house hold to house hold, slaughter pen to slaughter pen. Even in the bloodly space of the arena...the prey mammals bizarre behavior when serving their masters, facing beatings or imminent death became un-nerving, even emotionally unsettling to many Predators. The Writer Scinectarus…

"_We watched a match in the arena between a lamb and a lion, which normally was a little bit entertaining as the lambs would try to give some sport before death. We watched the lamb come forth dressed in the appropriate garb yet when the lion came out to meet him...he stripped himself of clothing...and hugged the Lion, which was so strange. The angry Lion then proceeded to pick the sheep off the ground and demand he fight for his life but then the sheep kissed him on the nose and tenderly petted the beast. In the end that is how the sheep died...still petting and speaking softly to his killer as his neck was crushed. All of the prey were acting like this. Many soon left having grown tired of the boredom of it all."_

Even at the hanging markets, where predators would fill the streets to watch the suffering cubs as they hung before being sold as meat. Many met their end with placid faces as if they knew life beyond their last breath would be far more comforting. Their disturbing words before they leaped themselves off their platforms…."I love you my predator brothers." "I cry for you." "I weep with you." "I love you." caused a serious decline in sales of live prey animals around the city. The "Peace of the Status Quo was seriously being challenged."

Even close to Cesar Cessai the workings of Aylar had an effect. His chief military counsel Alexander Grayus for years had hidden a secret. He had married years before in a secret pagan ritual his long time goat slave Ademi, a marriage illegal by Roman Law that carried the death penalty. Yet after begging his love to forgive him for the destruction of his tribe and years of cruelty, Graylus chose risk... speaking on Aylar's behalf when orders went out to place him and many of his followers under arrest for state treason.

And so it was that Aylar was put before Cessai in chains for trial. His enemies were obvious...the rich plantation owners, the slaughter pen keepers, the various Roman temples with their priests, anyone who stood to lose their money and their livelyhood if the customs and traditions were over turned. The Writer Scinectarus…

"_He was a fair young wolf you would hardly suspect of being treasonous. A traitor to me should look more a ruffian. His placid and docile mannor displayed a peace amidst all the chaotic world that was our city. I was aware as I looked at the crowd around him in the Senate chamber that perhaps a few took no umbridge at his theology...Rome had always been since her creation, a mother offering unfettered suckle to knowledge and ideals._

_Cessai asked him first if he was an enemy of Rome to which Aylar replied..."Can I alone surmount the walls, destroy the legions, bring plague upon you or hurt your illustrious sire? I can not do these things but God certainly will. He is not your enemy yet you surely have made him yours."_

_Cessai replied. "Which god? Luna? Lupini? Jupitor? Mars?_

"_None of those you know. I speak of "The god which is the only one." Aylar replied. This caused great gasps and quarreling around the chamber. Who did this blasphemer presume to trample on the sacred gods of Rome in this manor!"_

_Cessai questioned further. "Call forth this god of yours? If we are all doomed then let him prove his power?"_

"_I can no more command god than you can command the Tyber to do your every beckon my lord. God need not answer you. Does the slave or a common shop keeper tell you when to get up, when to sleep, when to move or where to go?" Aylar replied._

_Cessai gestured..."So? What is your solution? What does "your god" suggest?"_

"_He is not "my god" and he suggests nothing...he commands. Stop murdering our brothers and sisters, stop murdering their children, stop working them to death, stop being silent to their cries or god will wrath on us all! I have seen his terrible power...death shall fall upon predator and prey alike!"_

"_You say I should alter the natural way of things?" Cessai said firmly. "Prey were created to be subjugated and eaten, that is their way of life."_

"_That was before they, like us, were blessed by god with the gift of speech and thought! The rabbit is no different than the lion, the lions you throw into the arena to be speared to death for our amusement! Its is not the reason of survival or sustenance which drives our butchery of our timid brothers and sisters! It barbarianism and murder!"_

_Cessai stood up and raged..."You propose to subvert the existence of Rome by inciting rebellion!"_

"_You freed the foxes and corrected an injustice upon them and you are part fox!" Aylar snapped back. "The Bunny, the Sheep, the cow are no different! If you will not change? God will change you and death shall fall upon us all! His justice will not long sleep!"_

_Cessai clenched his fists..."Do you wish to die?"_

"_Do you wish to burn in hell?!" Aylar replied._

_Cessai returned to his seat and scowled..."Your ideas are dangerous and treasonous to the Roman State and to it's survival." He said as he called forth a slave with a bowl of water and washed his paws thus..."Take him and 20 of his followers where you can find them...crucify them. Yet because you are a wolf? I will spare you being scourged and brutalized as is the law for traitors."_

_Aylar replied. "Will you treat my disciples so?"_

_When Cessai did not reply, Aylar then said..."Then I want no clemency from you. I will have it from god. I cry for you great Cessai, you're hate and blindness condemns you. All of you are condemned! Your progeny are condemned! Unless you change, all of you and your children will be consumed in hell fire!"_

_Suddenly the lady Snowinia burst forwards and threw herself at Cesar Cessai's feet screaming forgiveness and clemency. When Cessai told her he had washed his hands of the criminal...Snowinia moved to Aylar's side, wrapped her arms around him and cried..."Then I am one of his disciples! My two children are his disciples! If he dies then we die with him!"_

_Cessai snarled at her..."So be it!" And he ordered her seized as also her two cubs who snarled and bit their captors as they were torn from the bunnies that were once their slaves. Both of these bunnies had their necks snapped soon after._

In addition to Aylar, Snowinia and her two cubs...sixteen others found to be Aylar's followers be they slaves or predators alike were imprisoned, subjected to utter brutality then dragged to the Hill of Holy Justice the Montem Sanctum Justinia where they were tied to twenty trees and prepared to be speared to death through the heart and lungs. Today the site is thought to be on a crest of a hill between Hill Street in downtown Zootopia and the Mongoose River where a wall monument called "The hill of martyrs" now resides.

Because he dared to speak and request exile for Aylar and his followers, Alexander Graylus was ordered to carry out the execution to prove his loyalty to the State. After which...he was cook alive and eat his own slave...his very husband. A moment of rebellion might have passed in his mind yet we are not sure exactly what happened to Alexander Graylus's thoughts as he approached the condemned. He allowed Aylar to make a statement...The Writer Scinectarus…

_Aylar beckoned the grand Counsel to allow him to speak which the Counsel allowed. The poor beautiful and young wolf had been shorn his fur, his body covered in brutal cuts from the cruelty of the shaving among other indignities heaped upon him as a declared traitor of Rome and yet his countenance seemed placid, full of peace and steady as if longing to be unleashed in joy from its' mortal shell…_

"_Gentle mammals….loving brothers and sisters….I forgive you! My only hearts desire was to see you changed, to set free our brothers and sisters from death and bondage! Not for them to unleash their anger and wrath upon you but for all mammals to live as god gave us the gifts to live together! It is not too late to turn from your ways! It is not too late to save yourselves and your children from god's terrible wrath! I beg you to embrace your prey brothers and sisters! Free them from their misery and death before you will all be consumed in the flames of hell! Please! I beg of you! I do not hate you! In love do I call you to obey god's holy commands! Please!"_

_With that...two spears were run through Aylar's body. His head raised upwards and he howled mournfully which terrified many and then with his last words he gasped…."Father…..forgive them." And died._

A day later….the grand Counsel Alexander was forced to prepare and slowly cook his own husband to death and then eat him as loyalists to Cesar Cessai looked on. It would set the Empire on the express train to its eventual self destruction.

**Next: The assassination of the White Wolf and the cascade of the last Caesars of Rome.**

Perhaps Cessai felt the winds of discomfort lapping at his heels as the prophet and the martyrs who hung with him were left to rot on the trees. In the following years of his reign. Some things regarding prey animals were changed. Banned were the public hanging markets. Some relief was allowed for the slaves who worked the numerous mines if they could pass tests showing a high IQ where they would be removed to serve in the courts and law offices as clerks. On the many slaughtering farms, mothers no longer had entire broods slaughtered but were permitted to keep one or two off spring who would then be separated at ages which permitted them to work farm fields. No more were females subjected to repeated rape to bear new litters. Now they could have husbands, but of course the marriages were not binding and slave couples could be broken up.

However….nothing saved Cessai from the rage of his chief counsel. In the year 390...Alexander Graylus punged a dagger into Cessai's heart during a counsel of war for an upcoming legionare foray into new territory discovered the year previous…

"This is for my lover, my beloved goat whom you had me kill!...Sic Semper Tiranus!" Graylus was said to have uttered as he kicked the dead body off his blade. He and a band of confederates quickly took power declaring they would bring to an end the legacy of prey thirst...he did not last a month.

As Graylus did to Cessai, one of his lieutenants did to him in a bath house. A cunning young wolf named Vilo Senlencio took advantage of Graylus's mournful pine-ing for his dead beloved years before and seduced him into a false sense of security. During an act of gay love in a bath...Senlencio sliced Graylus's throat open.

The violence that befell prey mammals after this reached horrifying levels of brutality. Cesar Vilo reserved the most sick and depraved acts of butchery for identified followers of Aylar yet his faith had gone underground and remained a virus Vilo could not stamp out no matter how many he killed nor the level of cruelty he could reach to inflict terror on the population. It was here that the years of Roman expansion ended. Lupinian Rome had reached the high water mark of her size and power. The last Cesars that followed Vilo would try to maintain empire in the midst of corruption, greed, treachery, assassination, then invasion, fragmentation, economic failures, catastrophic climate changes and wide spread pandemics. Troubles were coming too fast from too many directions for the empire that Romulus started to hold. To save it would require a radical reformer with almost fanatical courage

Thus would come the last great emperor in the year 820 of Rome's existence, not a wolf but another lion...a white lion by the name of Cesar Panshah.

End of Chapter 1


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